Agricultural harvesting machines, such as balers, are used to consolidate and package crop material so as to facilitate the storage and handling of the crop material for later use. In the case of hay, a mower-conditioner is typically used to cut and condition the crop material for windrow drying in the sun. In the case of straw, an agricultural combine discharges non-grain crop material from the rear of the combine defining the straw (such as wheat or oat straw) which is to be picked up by the baler. The cut crop material is typically raked and dried, and a baler, such as a round baler or large square baler, straddles the windrows and travels along the windrows to pick up the crop material and form it into bales.
A round baler may include a main bale chamber where the crop material is rolled into a bale of a predetermined size, and then typically wrapped with twine or mesh. An optional film wrapping station may be positioned at the rear of the baler, and receives the formed bale and wraps the bale with a stretchable plastic film to seal the bale against exposure to the ambient environment and assist with the anaerobic fermentation process. A further optional quarter turn unit (also known as a side tip unit) can be positioned rearward from the film wrapping station. The quarter turn functions to tip the round bale on one end as it is ejected from the baler, so that the bale does not roll down a hill. The quarter turn basically has a frame member that supports one end of the bale and the other end is allowed to fall to the ground. In one configuration, the frame member can be a simple pipe which extends horizontally rearward when in the field or harvest position. To avoid a possible collision between the quarter turn and a vehicle traveling behind the baler, the quarter turn can be manually pivoted to an upright position and locked in place during road transport using a bolt and lock nut arrangement. The pipe and supporting structure can be somewhat heavy and awkward to rotate and hold in place while the bolt and lock nut arrangement is installed.
What is needed in the art is an agricultural baler with a quarter turn which can be easily rotated between the field and road transport positions, and easily locked and unlocked in the transport position.